With the five of us kids, our spouses, nine grandchildren, my parents and (often) my grandmother, a typical family dinner looks like we’re having a frat party with kids and no beer. It is wall to wall chaos in the best possible of ways. We are loud and obnoxious so that we’re heard over the steady noise of laughing and kids playing. More often than not, we speak in movie quotes so it can often be difficult to follow one of our conversations if you’re not well-versed in a Goonies, Princess Bride, Anchorman, Drop Dead Fred and most Disney movies that have ever been created kind of language. It’s like we created our own version of pig-Latin. With A LOT more sarcasm and obscure So I Married an Axe Murderer references.

Unfortunately, due to a virus that knocked them down, my parents weren’t able to be at our house on Saturday night. We missed them dearly and promised that we wouldn’t have any fun or belly-laughs without them. We’re terrible liars and they saw through the bullshit, but at least we made an attempt. We tried to be as boring and unfunny as possible. But we just so happen to be REALLY bad at boring and unfunny when we’re all together. I mean, according to our own selves.

As it usually happens, we got to the point where we can’t breathe due to the laughing as we end up telling stories about when we were kids and incredibly dumb. Since there’s a bit of an age gap between my sisters and I and our younger brothers, we inevitably tell a story that they’ve never hear or don’t know very much about. And, of course, at some point, there is a story told that I have no recollection of because I can’t seem to fit ALL the memories in my head. (Even if the story involves me saving my sister’s life. Nothing. NO memory of such things.) The broken handlebar/bike crashing/friend riding over my sister story was, hands down (bike down?) the favorite of the night.

That doesn’t sound funny at all when I write it that way. Just trust me. It is.

At some point in the night, a discussion came up about swearing in front of your children. I have a black belt in swearing in front of my children, but I do try not to swear in front of my nieces and nephews. SOMETIMES. But since we were talking about swearing in front of our OWN kids, my daughter, of course, says something about how I used to be better about it.

I said, “Yeah. Apparently I used to care a lot more. NOW? F*ck it.”

What are, WORDS THAT I’VE NEVER SAID IN FRONT OF MY GRANDMOTHER, ALEX.

In fact, it’s not a word I (generally) use in front of my family. No really, I’m being honest. And while I was peripherally aware that my grandmother was right there, I don’t think all of my brain had really thought that sentence through.

My husband swears he’s never seen my grandma laugh so hard.

But this might be the last time we’re all allowed to gather without parental supervision. Some of us can’t be trusted.